Times Square billboard blank as global IT outage dims bright lights

Digital billboards at New York City's Times Square went blank as an IT outage impacted the world on Friday, 19 July.

Banks, supermarkets and other major institutions reported computer issues disrupting services, with some airlines warning of delays and some airports grounding flights.

Sky News was offline and an ABC News presenter was unable to read from an autocue as TV stations were affected.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said it was “actively working” to fix a “defect” in an update for Microsoft Windows users which sparked the chaos, the company’s chief executive has said.